Spring Break

Charlotte Douglas

USA TODAY bestselling author Charlotte Douglas, a versatile writer who has produced over twenty-five books, including romances, suspense, Gothics and even a Star Trek novel, has now created a mystery series featuring Maggie Skerritt, a witty and irreverent homicide detective in a small fictional town on Florida’s Central West Coast.

Douglas’s life has been as varied as her writings. Born in North Carolina and raised in Florida, she earned her degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended graduate school at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She has worked as an actor, a journalist and a church musician and taught English and speech at the secondary and college level for almost two decades. For several summers while newly married and still in college, she even manned a U. S. Forest Service lookout in northwest Montana with her husband.

Married to her high school sweetheart for over four decades, Douglas now writes full-time. With her husband and their two cairn terriers, she divides her year between their home on Florida’s Central West Coast—a place not unlike Pelican Bay—and their mountaintop retreat in the Great Smokies of North Carolina.

She enjoys hearing from readers, who can contact her at charlottedouglas1@juno.com.

Spring Break

Charlotte Douglas

From the Author

Dear Reader,

In West Central Florida, spring and fall often arrive at the same time. In late February, as azaleas in dazzling colors burst into bloom and the air is laden with the scent of orange blossoms and confederate jasmine, deciduous trees drop their leaves. This juxtaposition of rebirth and the end of life is also reflected in the influx of college students to beach communities, where they vie with senior citizens for parking places and spaces on the sand.

This spring, as Maggie Skerritt launches her new career as a private investigator and plans her approaching marriage to Bill Malcolm, a ghost from her past has her looking back to a cold case that has haunted her for sixteen years. In this time of rebirth and renewal, Maggie finds herself surrounded, not only by young people on spring break but by death, as well. But Maggie, with the help of Bill and her former partner Adler, is determined to prevail. Enjoy spring break in Pelican Bay!

Happy reading!

Charlotte Douglas

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 1

Darcy Wilkins skidded into my office early Monday morning and closed the door. I looked up in alarm. Darcy, in all her years as a police dispatcher, had never lost her cool. And in the few weeks she’d served as receptionist for Pelican Bay Investigations, she’d been a model of efficiency and decorum. Today, however, she had the wild and crazy look of a die-hard rock ’n’ roll fan who had just sighted Elvis, alive and well.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Maggie.” Her voice was breathless, her brown cheeks flushed, her eyes wide and bright. “You’ll never guess who’s asking to see you.”

Why people tell you that you can’t do something, then wait for you to do it, I’ve never understood. “Okay, I give up.”

“Jolene Jernigan!”

I drew a total blank.

Darcy must have guessed by the look on my face. “You don’t know who she is.”

“Haven’t a clue.”

“You don’t watch daytime television?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Darcy shook her head. “Jolene Jernigan has been the star of Heartbeats for more than forty years.”

“Heartbeats? Is that a fitness show?”

I’d once caught Caroline, my older sister, sweating to the oldies with Richard Simmons, but I’d never heard of Jolene Jernigan.

Darcy looked at me as if I’d been raised in a barn. “It’s the number-one soap opera on television. I watched it every day when I worked night shifts. Now that I’m working days, I have to record it.”

“So what’s this Jolene doing in Florida? Aren’t soaps broadcast live from either New York or L.A.?”

“Her character’s in a coma with her face bandaged because of an auto accident. Maybe she has a stand-in for a while.”

“Did Jolene say why she’s here in Pelican Bay?”

Darcy shook her head and made a tsking noise.

“For a detective, you don’t know much. She owns a fabulous vacation home on Pelican Beach.”

“And she wants to see me?”

“She says it’s urgent.”

I glanced at my bare desktop and my day planner devoid of appointments. “I suppose I can work her in.”

“Don’t forget to ask for an advance.” Darcy ducked out the door.

She was right to remind me. After twenty-two years as a police officer, I wasn’t yet accustomed to the business details of running a private investigation firm. I preferred that Bill Malcolm, my fiancé and partner in crime, so to speak, handle money matters, but he was in Sarasota on another case.

Through the open windows of our recently acquired second-floor office, I could hear the traffic idling on Main Street as it backed up from the causeway to the beach. The April breeze carried the scent of confederate jasmine and sweet viburnum tinged with car-exhaust fumes. The town had more visitors than you could stir with a stick, and half of them were young, horny and slightly inebriated. I recalled reading a complaint the British had made about American troops during World War II: overpaid, oversexed and over here. Apply that to these college kids and you had spring break in Pelican Bay in a nutshell.

Darcy returned, opened the door to my office and stood aside for Jolene to enter.

With luxuriant long brown hair, huge Italian sunglasses, and a tall, gaunt figure, the result of either good genes or semistarvation, the woman was a dead ringer for the late Jackie O. The cut and quality of her linen slacks, cashmere sweater and matching sandals would have made my sister, a world-class shopper, drool.

Darcy gestured to a leather club chair in front of my desk and, once Jolene was seated, asked if she wanted coffee.

The actress shook her head, and Darcy, looking as if she’d give her eyeteeth to stay and hear the woman’s story, reluctantly withdrew.

“I’m Maggie Skerritt. What brings you here, Ms. Jernigan?”

“The Internet.”

I swallowed my disappointment. If she needed cyber-snooping, she’d come to the wrong place. I was as technophobic as they came and had to hire a computer specialist in Clearwater to do my Web surfing.

“I need a private eye,” she continued, “and your firm is the closest one listed on the Web.” Her voice was low and husky, as if she’d been crying.

“Why do you need an investigator?” I’d get to the harder questions later.

She drew a deep shuddering breath. “My baby’s been kidnapped.”

“Your baby?” Recently turned forty-nine, I was no spring chicken, and Jolene had at least fifteen years on me. For her, childbearing age had to be a dim, distant memory. But she’d said baby, so maybe she’d adopted.

“Roger.” She muffled a sob and fumbled in her purse for a tissue. “He’s only three.”

Now she had my complete attention. “Have you notified the authorities?”

Her head snapped up, and I could feel the intensity of her gaze behind her dark glasses. “Are you crazy? And have it splashed all over the news?”

“Were you threatened?”

“Huh?”

“Did the kidnappers say they’d harm your baby if you went to the police?”

She shook her head. “No, I just don’t want the bad publicity.”

Jolene Jernigan was either the dumbest woman I’d ever met or I’d missed something. Or both. “Do you have any idea who might have taken your child?”

“Who said anything about a child? Roger’s my dog, an adorable pug.”

Bingo. The missing link. “How long has Roger been gone?”

“Since shortly after I had it out with that snotty little bitch.” She forced her words through clenched teeth, and her well-manicured nails dug into the expensive leather of her purse.

Snotty little bitch. “Another dog?”

“Of course not.” She yanked off her sunglasses and glared at me with red-rimmed eyes. Her perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted in an expression of perpetual surprise, and her skin stretched taut as a drumhead across her cheekbones, the obvious result of repeated cosmetic surgeries. Only the crepe lines on her neck gave away her age.

I dug deep for patience. “With whom did you have it out?”

“Grace Lattimore. She’s been my personal assistant for the past thirty years.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning, Ms. Jernigan, and tell me exactly what happened?”

Jolene rammed her sunglasses atop her dark hair, devoid of any hint of gray. She crossed her legs, bounced one foot like a metronome and leaned back with a sigh. “We arrived at my condo on the beach Friday. My character on Heartbeats will be in a coma for the next three weeks, so I finally have some time off.”

I made what I hoped were appropriate sympathetic noises and nodded.

“Gracie and Roger always travel with me. And my little precious loves the beach. He was so excited.” She frowned. “Unfortunately, when Roger gets excited, he loses control.”

I raised my eyebrows, picturing a pug on the rampage but going with the flow in order not to interrupt her narrative with more questions.

Jolene sighed. “He kept piddling on the rugs and furniture. By the end of the weekend, Gracie had her knickers in a twist. ‘I was hired as your assistant,’ she said, ‘not to clean up dog pee.’

“‘For as much as I’m paying you,’ I reminded her, ‘you’ll do whatever I ask.’ ‘If that means cleaning up after that mangy little bugger, I quit,’ Gracie screamed. Then she stomped into her room and slammed the door.” Jolene smiled and shrugged. “I didn’t think too much of it. Gracie quits at least twice a year. Then I give her a raise and she reconsiders. But this time was different.”

I nodded. After all that piddle, Gracie, apparently, had reached her limit.

“When I woke up this morning, Gracie was gone, and so was Roger.”

“And you think Gracie took him?”

“Who else would have? My condo was locked and the grounds are gated with the tightest security.”

Interesting, I thought. As much as Gracie had hated cleaning up after the dog, she’d taken him with her, apparently just to yank Jolene’s chain. “Did Gracie leave a note?”

“Nothing. She just left.”

“Did she take her belongings?”

Jolene nodded. “And Roger’s, too.”

I formed a mental image of the pug with a suitcase.

“She took his food and dishes and his box of Milk-Bone treats.”

“Sounds as if Gracie at least plans to take good care of him.”

Jolene jumped to her feet and paced the recently re-finished hardwood floor. “But he’ll miss me. His little heart will be broken,” she insisted with all the fervor of an experienced drama queen, before her expression hardened into something ugly. “I want him back.”

“Any idea where Gracie might have gone?”

Still pacing, she waved one hand toward the windows. “She has relatives in Largo.”

I grabbed a pad and pencil. “I’ll need their names and addresses.”

Jolene halted in front of the desk and gave me the information. “How soon can you get on this? I really miss Roger.”

“I’ll start right away.” Remembering Darcy’s parting instructions, I added, “Of course, there’s the small matter of a retainer.”

Jolene retrieved her purse from the chair and snapped it open. She extracted a checkbook, wrote a check with a flourish and handed it to me. “This should take care of it. And here’s my cell number.”

She rattled off the digits, which I scribbled hastily on the pad on my desk.

I rose and walked her to the door. “I’ll call as soon as I have something for you.”

After Jolene left, Darcy came in. “Did you get her autograph?”

“The best kind.”

Darcy’s eyes almost bugged out when I showed her the check for $10,000.

Later that morning, after fighting my way through tourist traffic to Pelican Beach, I checked with security at the condo where Jolene owned her penthouse and confirmed that Gracie had indeed departed by cab late Sunday night with Roger in tow. A viewing of the surveillance tape had given me a look at Gracie, who was short, plump and dowdy with cropped straight gray hair and wire-framed glasses. Roger was short, plump, smush-faced and light brown with a black face and ears.

I left the beach and headed to the address in Largo where Gracie’s relatives lived. What should have been a straight shot down Fort Harrison Avenue and Clearwater-Largo Road became a rat’s maze of work zones and detours. If you’re anywhere in Florida during tourist season, you can bet the shortest distance between two points is under construction.

Just south of Bay Drive, Largo’s main drag, I found the road where Frank and Ellen Lattimore, Gracie’s aunt and uncle, lived. The street’s frame bungalows, built in the thirties and forties and shaded by massive live oaks draped in flowing Spanish moss, were small but well maintained, and the lawns were neat and tidy. I pulled onto the crushed-shell driveway of the address Jolene had given me. There was no vehicle in the carport, and with its shades drawn, the house appeared deserted.

On the off chance that Gracie was inside, hiding out, I climbed out of my twelve-year-old Volvo, went up the front walk and knocked on the door to the screened porch. When no one answered, I knocked again, louder, thinking surely Roger, if he was there, would have made some noise.

“They’re not home.”

At the sound of the loud voice in my ear, I almost jumped out of my skin. I whirled around to find an elderly man standing directly behind me. Dressed in baggy shorts, a sweaty T-shirt and grass-stained sneakers and holding long-handled loppers, he had a short, wiry build and was as brown and wrinkled as a raisin. A battered straw hat covered his head.

“If you’re selling something,” he said, “or one of those come-to-Jesus people, you’re wasting your time.”

“You their neighbor?”

“Yup, and you are?”

“Maggie Skerritt. I work for Gracie Lattimore’s employer.”

His leathery face twisted into a grimace. “The actress.”

I nodded. “Have you seen Gracie? I have a message for her.”

“You’re out of luck. She arrived late last night, but the whole bunch took off early this morning. Even the dog.”

“The dog?” At least Gracie hadn’t ditched the pooch after she left Jolene’s.

“Ugly little mutt. Gracie had it on a lead, and they packed a dog carrier along with the rest of the luggage.”

“They were taking a trip?”

“Yup. I promised Frank I’d look after his place while they’re gone.”

“Did Frank say where they were going?”

The old man shrugged. “Said they were traveling across country to see the sights.”

I was good at tracking, but not that good. It’s a hell of a big country. “Did he leave a contact number, some way he can be reached?”

“I can give you his cell phone.”

“That would help. Thanks.”

He turned and walked toward the house next door. I trailed along.

“I hope Gracie knows what she’s doing,” he said over his shoulder, “dragging her pet along.”

“Why is that?”

“Frank hates dogs. Gracie’ll be lucky if he doesn’t make her leave that mutt on the roadside in the middle of nowhere.”

Great, I thought. It looked as if I was going to need the FBI and the SPCA if I intended to find Roger.

After obtaining Frank’s phone number, I drove to the nearest shopping center and found a pay phone inside Publix, the grocery store. Bill had been harping at me for years to buy a cell phone, but I hated the idea of everyone being able to reach out and touch me 24/7. For the first time in more than twenty-two years, I was enjoying life without the annoyance of a police radio or a beeper. And, so far, I’d always been able to locate a phone when I needed one.

Locating Frank Lattimore was another matter. Either his cell phone was out of range or he wasn’t answering. I hoped I could contact him before he dumped the dog. Although I’d never owned a pet—my meticulous mother wouldn’t have one in the house when I was a kid, and, as an adult, I was never home—I loved animals. With his roly-poly body, a gait like a drunken sailor, and a face like an aging prizefighter, Roger was cute in a grotesque way. I didn’t want him to end up lost or hurt. But then I’ve always been a sucker for kids and animals.

By now, it was late afternoon, so I called Darcy. When she reported no messages or other business, I cut her loose from the office and drove toward home, where I intended to spend my evening trying to reach Frank Lattimore.

My stomach was growling with hunger. I’d skipped lunch, knowing every food vendor and restaurant would be thronged with spring break crowds, creating at least an hour’s wait to be served. If Bill hadn’t planned to stay overnight in Sarasota, I could have mooched supper off him. He loved to cook and could produce a fantastic meal out of practically thin air in the galley of his cabin cruiser. The Ten-Ninety-Eight, named after police radio code for “assignment completed,” was where he lived at the Pelican Bay Marina. I, on the other hand, considered my refrigerator stocked if it held a couple of Diet Cokes.

The sun hung low over the waters of St. Joseph’s Sound when I pulled into the parking space at my waterfront condo. I tossed my blazer, purse and keys onto the foyer table, removed my gun and holster, kicked off my shoes and crossed the living room to open the sliders that overlooked the water. Fresh, salty air, a perfect complement to the natural wicker and rattan furniture and the blue-green sea colors I’d chosen for paint and fabrics, filled the room. Bill called my decorating style Florida tourist hotel, but I liked the soothing atmosphere. Until my job as a police detective had ended two months ago, I’d spent too little time at home in the twelve years I’d owned the place. Now, working as my own boss, I hoped that would change.

I tried again to reach Frank Lattimore’s cell phone with no luck and was headed to my kitchen, hoping supper would miraculously materialize in the refrigerator, when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door to find Bill standing on the front porch.

I don’t know which I was happier to see, him with his thick white hair, smiling blue eyes, and deeply tanned physique that would put any college boy to shame, or the two bags of Olive Garden takeout he was holding.

“I thought you were spending the night in Sarasota,” I said.

“I missed you. Besides,” he said as he hefted the bags, stepped inside and headed for the kitchen, “I knew you’d be hungry.”

“You know me too well.”

“Not half as well as I intend to.”

“What if you discover I only love you because you feed me?”

“Then I’ll know how to guarantee your affection for the rest of my life.” His grin was devilish. “And you’ll gain a hundred pounds.”

“Only if you brought tiramisu.”

“I did.”

“I think I’ll marry you.”

“I’m counting on it.” He unloaded the bags and was transferring food into dishes from the cupboards. “Want to eat on the patio?”

I nodded and picked up a couple of plates and some silverware to carry outside. “Too bad I don’t have any wine.”

“I thought of that, too.” He pulled a bottle of Chianti from one of the bags. “Can’t have Italian food without a good red wine.”

“You sure you don’t have an ulterior motive?” I asked.

“Of course I do. I drove back from Sarasota because I don’t want to sleep alone.”

I grinned. “The food alone would have worked. The wine is overkill.”

“Better to have it and not need it—”

“Than to need it and not have it.” I finished one of his favorite sayings for him.

Later, sated with linguine and too much wine, I leaned back in my chair and watched the sun drop toward the horizon. I told Bill about our newest case, Jolene Jernigan and the missing Roger.

“Frank Lattimore’s not answering his cell phone,” I said, “so, at this point, I’m stumped.”

Bill swirled the last of the wine in his glass. “It doesn’t make sense that Frank, who doesn’t like dogs, would agree to take Roger on a cross-country trip.”

“Maybe they dropped off the dog to be boarded,” I said. “I’ll start calling kennels and vets in the morning.”

We watched the sun disappear before Bill spoke again. “Have you talked with your mother lately?”

“You sure know how to throw cold water on a perfect evening.”

“I take it that’s a no?”

“You take it right.”

My eighty-two-year-old mother, with whom I’d never been close, had ostracized me from the family circle before Christmas last year when I’d arrested the daughter of her best friend during a murder investigation. Although I’d eventually managed to clear the woman and find the real killer, Mother was still miffed. She hadn’t even thanked me for her Christmas present, a gaffe that my socially correct parent would commit only under the direst of circumstances.

“You have to make the first move,” Bill said.

“I’ve been moving. I sent her a Christmas gift, and I’ve called several times. But Estelle—” Mother’s housekeeper “—always says that Mother is out or asleep or unavailable.”

“Priscilla’s not getting any younger. You’d better mend your fences while you can.”

“I would if I knew how. Mother’s never liked me, and I haven’t a clue why.” The shrinks would have a field day with me, pushing fifty and still at odds with my mother. “She never approved of my career in law enforcement, but her dislike started long before that. Even as a child, I relied on Daddy to run interference between us. I wish Daddy were alive now.”

“Try sending flowers.”

I considered his suggestion. “A few dozen roses and crawling from here to her place on my bare knees might do the trick.”